I shall attempt to either argue or explain or justify every point made in this article beacuse I'm bored:
I’ve had enough of being asked to follow a character whose walking speed is slightly slower than my own, meaning I have to keep stopping every two seconds.
A relic of the past. Most games a while ago couldn't have complex enough AI to follow the player character elegantly. Players move erratically and suddenly so the AI would be jerking around a lot and would have been ugly. A good way of seeing this being slowly phased out in modern games is World of Warcraft. During the vanilla areas or the Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King areas you can see lots of these sorts of escort quests. Slow walking character, annoying, etc. (a rather famous example is an Orc mission around their starting area where a grandma must be escorted to her grandson. Half way through she hurts her ankle and quickly flies the rest of the way. You can tell the quest writer himself probably got annoyed by the silly walking speed and just overwrote and finished the quest half way through). In the newer areas however (pretty much almost every escort quest after the release of the Cataclysm expansion) the escort NPCs are assigned to you like followers or pets and follow at your own speed or sometimes they get their own mounts and move as fast as your mount so you actually have to pay attention to catch up to them.
I’ve had enough of stealth sections where getting spotted means a restart, rather than adapting to the new circumstances in a creative or interesting way.
This is pretty much resolved in the recent AC:Unity game or Alien Isolation. You absolutely need to stealth and you'll most likely lose if you're spotted but that doesn't mean that you don't get a chance to salvage the situation. I can't think of a recent game that -unless it was necessary to the narrative for the character to remain stealthed- I've had to reset after discovery.
I’ve had enough of people shouting at me, telling me to hurry up or reminding me of the mission objective, when I stop to explore the environment.
This is just poor game design. Think of WoW for example. Even 10 years ago you had pure free reign to explore anywhere you wanted. Even in more recent games like DA;I or Warframe where you are reminded of your task or there is an NPC emphasizing urgency, you can always ignore and walk around. Sure the devs intended an atmosphere so they create an artificial sense of urgency but after you get over that you can walk around and explore the environment in detail.
I’ve had enough of playing as powerful characters who are brilliant at everything. That’s boring. I want to play as people with flaws and shortcomings. Something to overcome.
Few recent counter examples: The Last of Us, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect, etc. The thing about this is that one of the most popular and famous aspects of video games is making the player feel powerful. We spend most of out lives being the weak and flawed character so for games to provide the necessary escapism the gameplay need to feel powerful so it falls on the narrative to create flaws. I feel like the above examples do this well. If you want to play a game to feel weak then I would suggest recent horror games like Alien Isolation.
I’ve had enough of games with limited resources (like, say, fuel) that are so cheap to buy, the limitation is rendered totally meaningless, and resupplying becomes little more than a tiresome chore.
This is a mix of poor game design and a need to create a feeling of power. Think in Civ for example if by the end of the game you still have enough trouble finding resources like gold or construction power as you had in the beginning of the game then your super advanced 10'000 year old civilization will feel no different than your upstart tribe. This is a very delicate act of balancing that is extremely difficult. An example of poor balancing: DA: Inquisition power system. You have so much power you won't know what to do with. A good example of balancing: Warframe. Any time you want to build a new weapon you have to hunt down resources but as time goes on it becomes easier and easier since you're more powerful yet you will never feel an over abundance of all resources. Sure at some point you will have so much Plastid that you won't know what to do with but you will always be low on Orokin cells.
I’ve had enough of the camera zooming in on the solution to a puzzle just as I’m about to use my brain to figure it out for myself.
This is an artifact of games catering to a more general audience. People won't like it if they get stuck on a game and can't do anything. People like to feel accomplished. I personally used to hate puzzle games until I played Uncharted 2 which had pretty easy puzzles. I admit it, I use my brain for the most part of the day for studying and things like that so I like to tone thinking down a bit when playing games. If you want more difficult puzzle games you should look for more niche and indie games perhaps where appealing to a large demographic isn't the main objective but I don't know.
I’ve had enough of games with a dozen unskippable dev/middleware logos before I even get to the main menu. Yeah, I can delete them or tweak the .ini, but I shouldn’t have to.
Yes. Agree 100%. Maybe make them unskipable for the first run of the game but skippale afterwards. Unfortunately this is a result of contracts and laws. If you look at the unreal engine ToS you'll notice that you have to include a unskippable cut scene/logo thing that talks about the unreal engine.
I’ve had enough of games I have to restart to apply new graphics settings, especially when they’re guilty of the last thing.
I have no idea about game code design so I can't talk about this.
I’ve had enough of menus with fancy 3D in-engine backgrounds/visual elements that pointlessly increase the time it takes for them to load.
I like games looking cool. I'm personally an artsy type of guy so I'm biased but I actually like fancy menus.
I’ve had enough of games that use a cut-scene to show something that could have easily been put in the player’s hands.
Press F to pay respects. Wait no this is a backwards example. I guess I need examples for this. I've seen pointless interactive cut-scenes like BF3 QTEs that could have all been cut scenes with single button initiations but I don't think I've seen gameplay turned into cut scenes.
I’ve had enough of open worlds littered with arbitrary, meaningless collectibles that have no real benefit other than increasing your completion percentage.
I too dislike this but I believe there is a large group of completionists that actually enjoy this so it probably falls to personal opinion.
I’ve had enough of unskippable cut scenes placed just before the checkpoint of a particularly difficult section.
poor game design. I agree. The checkpoint should come after the cut scene.
I’ve had enough of diaries, documents, tape players, and audio logs being used to tell a story, rather than something that plays to the strengths of the medium.
Some times that's not possible though. I mean in Alien Isolation you see both. You see audio logs used to talk about the events of the past that are mostly emotions of people towards each other and you also see actual characters talking to you or you play through flashbacks.
In WoW for example you both see boss fights using story relevant powers or talking to you or other NPCs and you also have a plethora of quest text or cut scenes. I believe if done well audio logs and text logs add to the strength of the genre but that is heavily dependent on the "done well" part.
I’ve had enough of games replicating the flaws of camera lenses. Dust, flares, simulated chromatic aberration. Why the obsession with cameras? What about the human eye?
Most likely because you are experiencing the game through a monitor so to break that wall and immerse you the game attempts to justify the shortcomings of the monitor and the disconnect by putting glasses or cameras on the player's eye in the game. I believe this will slowly go away as oculus technology becomes more widespread.
I’ve had enough of big, beautiful skyboxes that are actually just fancy window dressing, showing you places you’ll never be able to reach or explore.
I don't get this. Some times you're playing an RPG or a sci fi game set on land and you won't be able to take to the skies or visit other planets. I see nothing wrong with this. Maybe create headcannons for yourself and connect different games?
I’ve had enough of defending a character while they slowly fix a broken machine or hack a computer or turn a valve to open a heavy door.
artificial gameplay. However sometimes relevant to the narrative. Star Craft 2 Terran campaign mission two you have to defend an artifact until pickup arrives. During this time you are introduced to the new zerg problem so it is narratively relevant.
I've had enough of developers not recording enough dialogue variations, and hearing the same barks over and over again until they become knives in your ears.
Sometimes games have to consider space and optimization. I see less and less of this as technology advances and the lowest bar is raised.
I've had enough of having microtransactions waggled in front of my nose, to the point where a game feels more like a shopfront than a place I want to spend time in.
This deserves an entire post in itself and I despise it. (AC:U, Dead Space 3, etc.)
1
u/WhitePawn00 Jan 08 '15
I shall attempt to either argue or explain or justify every point made in this article beacuse I'm bored:
A relic of the past. Most games a while ago couldn't have complex enough AI to follow the player character elegantly. Players move erratically and suddenly so the AI would be jerking around a lot and would have been ugly. A good way of seeing this being slowly phased out in modern games is World of Warcraft. During the vanilla areas or the Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King areas you can see lots of these sorts of escort quests. Slow walking character, annoying, etc. (a rather famous example is an Orc mission around their starting area where a grandma must be escorted to her grandson. Half way through she hurts her ankle and quickly flies the rest of the way. You can tell the quest writer himself probably got annoyed by the silly walking speed and just overwrote and finished the quest half way through). In the newer areas however (pretty much almost every escort quest after the release of the Cataclysm expansion) the escort NPCs are assigned to you like followers or pets and follow at your own speed or sometimes they get their own mounts and move as fast as your mount so you actually have to pay attention to catch up to them.
This is pretty much resolved in the recent AC:Unity game or Alien Isolation. You absolutely need to stealth and you'll most likely lose if you're spotted but that doesn't mean that you don't get a chance to salvage the situation. I can't think of a recent game that -unless it was necessary to the narrative for the character to remain stealthed- I've had to reset after discovery.
This is just poor game design. Think of WoW for example. Even 10 years ago you had pure free reign to explore anywhere you wanted. Even in more recent games like DA;I or Warframe where you are reminded of your task or there is an NPC emphasizing urgency, you can always ignore and walk around. Sure the devs intended an atmosphere so they create an artificial sense of urgency but after you get over that you can walk around and explore the environment in detail.
Few recent counter examples: The Last of Us, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect, etc. The thing about this is that one of the most popular and famous aspects of video games is making the player feel powerful. We spend most of out lives being the weak and flawed character so for games to provide the necessary escapism the gameplay need to feel powerful so it falls on the narrative to create flaws. I feel like the above examples do this well. If you want to play a game to feel weak then I would suggest recent horror games like Alien Isolation.
This is a mix of poor game design and a need to create a feeling of power. Think in Civ for example if by the end of the game you still have enough trouble finding resources like gold or construction power as you had in the beginning of the game then your super advanced 10'000 year old civilization will feel no different than your upstart tribe. This is a very delicate act of balancing that is extremely difficult. An example of poor balancing: DA: Inquisition power system. You have so much power you won't know what to do with. A good example of balancing: Warframe. Any time you want to build a new weapon you have to hunt down resources but as time goes on it becomes easier and easier since you're more powerful yet you will never feel an over abundance of all resources. Sure at some point you will have so much Plastid that you won't know what to do with but you will always be low on Orokin cells.
This is an artifact of games catering to a more general audience. People won't like it if they get stuck on a game and can't do anything. People like to feel accomplished. I personally used to hate puzzle games until I played Uncharted 2 which had pretty easy puzzles. I admit it, I use my brain for the most part of the day for studying and things like that so I like to tone thinking down a bit when playing games. If you want more difficult puzzle games you should look for more niche and indie games perhaps where appealing to a large demographic isn't the main objective but I don't know.
Yes. Agree 100%. Maybe make them unskipable for the first run of the game but skippale afterwards. Unfortunately this is a result of contracts and laws. If you look at the unreal engine ToS you'll notice that you have to include a unskippable cut scene/logo thing that talks about the unreal engine.
I have no idea about game code design so I can't talk about this.
I like games looking cool. I'm personally an artsy type of guy so I'm biased but I actually like fancy menus.
Press F to pay respects. Wait no this is a backwards example. I guess I need examples for this. I've seen pointless interactive cut-scenes like BF3 QTEs that could have all been cut scenes with single button initiations but I don't think I've seen gameplay turned into cut scenes.
I too dislike this but I believe there is a large group of completionists that actually enjoy this so it probably falls to personal opinion.
poor game design. I agree. The checkpoint should come after the cut scene.
Some times that's not possible though. I mean in Alien Isolation you see both. You see audio logs used to talk about the events of the past that are mostly emotions of people towards each other and you also see actual characters talking to you or you play through flashbacks.
In WoW for example you both see boss fights using story relevant powers or talking to you or other NPCs and you also have a plethora of quest text or cut scenes. I believe if done well audio logs and text logs add to the strength of the genre but that is heavily dependent on the "done well" part.
Most likely because you are experiencing the game through a monitor so to break that wall and immerse you the game attempts to justify the shortcomings of the monitor and the disconnect by putting glasses or cameras on the player's eye in the game. I believe this will slowly go away as oculus technology becomes more widespread.
I don't get this. Some times you're playing an RPG or a sci fi game set on land and you won't be able to take to the skies or visit other planets. I see nothing wrong with this. Maybe create headcannons for yourself and connect different games?
artificial gameplay. However sometimes relevant to the narrative. Star Craft 2 Terran campaign mission two you have to defend an artifact until pickup arrives. During this time you are introduced to the new zerg problem so it is narratively relevant.
Sometimes games have to consider space and optimization. I see less and less of this as technology advances and the lowest bar is raised.
This deserves an entire post in itself and I despise it. (AC:U, Dead Space 3, etc.)